One of the problems of course with a tri-cycle gear model is to get it to sit on all 3 wheels as the CG without the weight of the real plane's equipment makes the model tail heavy. I put some weight in the bottom of the nose turret and inside the nose wheel itself, but what seems to have really helped is that since the engines all sit forward of the main gear, I stuffed a bunch of washers behind each firewall hoping the fact that it was quite a bit of weight would compensate for the fact that it was only slightly forward of the gears. I'm hopeful that it will be enough.

Having an aircraft with the CG right at just barely in front of the main gear would make landings and take offs pretty tricky for sure.

Hi Tom - I've been lurking in the shadows and just want to compliment you on your beautiful workmanship . Nice to see another post - hurry up and get the basement done so we can have more !

As an aside I have watched the Collings Foundation B 24 on several occasions and have come to the conclusion that it's center of gravity must be exactly over the main landing gear as I have never seen an an aircraft hobby horse so much while taxiing . Almost made me seasick while watching !

Cheers - Richard

That's interesting, and probably shows just how bombload dependent the thing was for balance...

That's also probably why the C-87 transport was so finicky (and was almost grounded after 2-3 accidents). The bomb racks set a regulated center of gravity, but a transport could have deadly variations if you were not careful...

Time for an update. While my basement was being finished (Labor Day -Thanksgiving) I created a temporary work area in my den and actually continued to get some stuff done. Most of what I did was scratch build all of the interior items I wanted to add (mostly for the intercom and radio systems) along with other details. I'll probably have to stop for a while again, while I start to rebuild my work room in the basement so I can resume work there. Next big project will be the bomb bay as well as the radio operators station and the radio installation over the bomb bay.

Thanks for all your kind words. After I bought the aftermarket radio set available, I realized that there were quite a few items not included, and it seemed silly to put a few in and not the rest, so I resorted to scratch building. The internet is so great for research, as I was able to find not only the flight manual which described all the items along with pictures, but additional photos of the items from various places as well. Once an engineer, always an engineer I guess!

Splendid work. So where did you get these - scratchbuilt? I think this is a hydraulic/fuel system:

It's a hybrid. The main piece you're looking at in the photo is from the Eduard PE set with some scratch built pieces to give it more depth. There's another similar PE piece for the LH side of the aircraft. But these pieces go only in the bomb bay section, so I scratch built some additional pieces to go into the area under the flight deck. I didn't make as many lines as there actually are according to the photos, but only enough to match the PE lines.

Time for an update. I've mostly finished the intercom wiring and the radio system installation. A large part of that has to wait until after I build the compartment over the bomb bay. I've also installed the flight suit heater system and the aux generator and batteries as well as two hydraulic reservoirs and the nose gear door retractors. Next up will be the oxygen and fuel systems and then on to the bomb bay which will finally allow me to permanently install the flight deck and nose wheel assembly.

I've finished the oxygen system. Next up will be to finally complete the bomb bay which will include scratch building the radio compartment over the wings as well as do the fuel system. I won't do any tanks since those are either inside the wings (already completed) or in the space which the wing attachments are. But I plan to add the hoses, lines and valves which would either be in the radio compartment or bomb bay.